


A Win All Around

by PhryneFicathon, Scruggzi



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Arachnophobia, F/M, Fluff, Mac is an absolute legend, Roadtrip, beachwear, snarky Phrack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-12 20:40:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13555179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhryneFicathon/pseuds/PhryneFicathon, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scruggzi/pseuds/Scruggzi
Summary: Phryne, Jack and Mac are off on a trip to the beach, how long before Phryne runs into trouble...





	A Win All Around

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RubyCaspar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyCaspar/gifts).



> Huge thanks to Solitarycyclist for being my beta and helping me work out why the hell they were heading to that beach in the first place. 
> 
> Sonia Delaunay was an actual designer and I am convinced her and Phryne would have been friends. Originally a painter she designed clothes in a modern, abstract style using lots of bright colours and bold shapes (think Phryne's clown coat in Deadweight). Her philosophy was to create clothes for the active modern woman, compatible with swimming, running, sleuthing, scaling buildings, apprehending villains on rooftops...OK I may have added those last few but I can't imagine Sonia would have been anything but delighted by the idea.

Phryne was luxuriating in the feel of the wind as it streamed past, whipping the creamy silk of her scarf out behind her. The engine of the Hispano-Suiza was humming along at a very respectable 82 miles an hour, but she was fairly sure that now they had hit the good straight stretch of road which would take them to their bathing spot, she would be able to push it up to 90. Of course there was always a possibility that Jack would get sulky and start threatening to arrest her, but she wasn’t too perturbed, the man was so pretty when he pouted. It made vexing him a terribly tempting prospect.

The Inspector for his own part was holding on to his hat and doing his best to fight down nausea and the urge to object to his partner’s reckless driving. He was fairly sure giving any voice to those objections would only encourage her, but if she insisted on trying to make the car break the laws of mechanical engineering as well as the mere laws of the land (the ones he had incidentally sworn to uphold), he would be forced to put his foot down. It might help if Dr MacMillan were to back him up, Phryne was usually more willing to take advice from the doctor than she was from anyone else.

“Do try not to kill us all before we get there won’t you, Phryne?” Mac interjected - possibly she had been reading Jack’s thoughts, but more likely she had noticed the slight green pallor which even his most stoic face couldn’t hide. She herself seemed perfectly at ease in the back seat, her legs stretched out and the wind whipping the ash from the head of her cigarette.

“You’re perfectly safe with me Mac, besides, I’m only trying to get us there in good time. Jack owes me a swim race to the end of the pier.” She shot the man in question a flirtatious look which he did his best to parry with a raised eyebrow and a head tilt whilst inwardly praying she would keep her eyes on the road.

“Well as your duly appointed referee I’d rather we arrive a little later and a lot less traumatised. I’m sure the Inspector will be feeling all the more athletic if he doesn’t lose his breakfast before we get there,” said Mac with a pointed glance towards him.

Jack coughed, feeling he should probably start speaking for himself at this point.

“I didn’t expect you to need that much of a head start Miss Fisher, I’m flattered.” 

Even with the constant underlying fear for life and limb her driving always inspired in him, he couldn’t repress the little spark of delight he got from goading her. She could almost always be relied upon to outpace him. It made those rare occasions where he managed to beat her at her own game all the sweeter, and he was pretty confident that he was going to win this race.

Phryne sniffed, “Hardly, I just thought you might like a rematch after my inevitable victory.”

Dr Mac rolled her eyes in the back seat, unseen by either of her companions who were too busy bickering to notice. Honestly, if she had realised he would use it as an excuse to step up the flirting, she would never have bothered coming to the Inspector’s rescue - the ingrate. Still, she noticed that Phryne had in fact slowed the car, which was something. That kind of speed could give a woman indigestion.

Jack too had noticed the slackening pace and decided he probably owed Dr Mac a whiskey in thanks. Before long however, he realised that the reduction in speed owed less to her friends’ collective powers of persuasion and more to Miss Fisher’s own observational skills. 

She had spotted something.

“Look at that.” Phryne was frowning and pointing at a car which had apparently come off the road and hit a fence post. Its front wheels were stuck in a ditch, its back ones hovering aloft in the warm summer air.

Mac and the Inspector exchanged a brief glance before Mac pulled out the smart little pocket watch Phryne had bought her for Christmas and checked the time.

“Four hours sixteen minutes. Cough up Inspector.”

“Perhaps we should check on the driver first? They may need our help.” He responded with a sigh.

Phryne pulled up next to the crashed motorcar with a faint squeal of brakes; she had still been travelling at quite a speed.

“I’m afraid not Inspector,” she said grimly as she peered over at what was unmistakably a corpse, slumped across the steering wheel.

Jack pulled down the corners of his mouth in an ‘I should have guessed’ expression, extracted a pound note from his pocketbook and handed it to the doctor. This was unusual enough as an occurrence that Phryne was momentarily distracted from the prospect of murder. It looked suspiciously like her friends were taking bets on how long she needed on holiday before coming across a dead body. She was shocked.

“Jack!” she intoned reprovingly, “you didn’t bet against me?”

He smirked at her. “I didn’t think we’d make it out of Melbourne. You’re losing your touch, Miss Fisher.”

She tilted her head up and raised a defiant eyebrow at him, “We’ll see about that.”

Not giving him time to get up and open the door for her, Phryne jumped out of the car and went to inspect the body, leaving her partner two steps behind and resigned to a busman’s holiday, and her best friend mentally calculating her winnings and double checking the time on her pocket watch - she had an appointment of her own to keep, after all.

***

Phryne strode over to the car, careful not to smudge any of the tyre marks and touching the surface of the vehicle as little as possible, although she was of course wearing gloves. She recognised the car itself as one of the newer Singer Colonial models, designed especially to contend with the heat, distances and rough terrain which were common problems for the Australian motorist. It had a reputation for reliability and whilst no match for the Hispano in terms of speed, was by no means an inexpensive or unreliable alternative; she therefore considered it unlikely that the crash was the result of a mechanical failure. Something more sinister could well be afoot.

Turning to give the Inspector the benefit of her opinion, she saw Jack crouched down examining the tyre marks on the road.

“Looks like he came off the road here,” he pointed the skid marks out to her, “I’d say he tried to brake and lost control of the wheel, perhaps an animal or something ran out in front of him.”

Phryne nodded, glancing back up the track to where the impact of the braking tyres had left traces on the dusty surface of the road.

“If so it couldn’t decide on the best way to run, look,” she indicated the swerving tracks. “It doesn’t look like he had control of the wheel at all at this point. What if there was a passenger and he was attacked from behind?”

“It’s possible I suppose, but we won’t be able to search the vehicle until we can get a police photographer out to record the scene.”

This was not technically true, but Jack really wasn’t in the right frame of mind to deal with a road traffic accident and the longer Miss Fisher investigated, the greater the chance that it would turn out to be murder, fully disrupting a potentially very pleasant day off. Phryne grinned in the manner of a Miss Fisher who was about to take the credit for entirely unplanned serendipity. 

“No need for that, Jack,” she pulled her bag from the boot of the Hispano and extracted a camera, “I came prepared.”

Mac, who had calculated that her winnings might reach slightly over £7 if some of the younger constables were actually good for the money, was feeling rather better disposed to help out and volunteered to examine the body herself, thus solving any problems caused by the lack of a forensics team. She couldn’t resist a certain amount of grumbling though.

“You know I was hoping to spend my day off without having to deal with a corpse.”

“Not enough to lay money on it,” Phryne retorted, but with good humour; next time she fully intended to place a bet herself. It would hardly be chivalrous to keep her out of it now she knew what her friends were up to.

The mild amusement on the Doctor’s face at her friend’s feigned indignation gave way to cool, dispassionate professionalism as she examined the body in the car. The man was middle aged and rather overweight; well, if soberly, dressed, his shiny bald pate was smattered with small cuts from the shattered windshield. There was no conclusive cause of death that Mac could see on a visual inspection; none of the visible lacerations appeared to be near any major arteries or to be especially deep. The impact of his head on the steering wheel when the car hit the post was the most likely candidate but she would probably need to get the body on the slab to be sure. She moved around to the far side, unwilling to open the car up until Phryne had finished with the photographs but wanting to get a less obstructed view. It was partially blocked on the near side by a large fence post which had smashed right through the window, narrowly missing the man’s head.

“Take a look.” She gestured to the detectives who still appeared to be squabbling affectionately about something. ‘ _Surely they must have resolved their ever present sexual tension by this point_ , she wondered, _Phryne’s been back from Europe a week and I swear I saw Jack actually smile at a junior constable yesterday, he wasn’t even off duty.’_ She was determined to get to the bottom of that question before dropping her own particular kitten amongst the romantic pigeons.

Her companions walked over to join her, Phryne holding Jack’s arm as if to steady herself on the uneven ground, a pretence which fooled no-one, including the corpse.

“If you lose control of a vehicle, the instinctive reaction is to grip onto the steering wheel, but look here,” Mac pointed to where the man’s arm was crooked and hanging loose, “he’d need a good reason to take a hand off the wheel once the car started to veer off the road.”

“Such as fighting off an attacker?” Phryne suggested.

“Must you always assume murder?” her friend chastised. “You said the skid marks on the road were erratic? He could have had a heart attack. Clutching at the chest is a common reaction, and even if it wasn’t immediately fatal he would have found it hard to keep the car on the road.”

Jack nodded, apparently satisfied by this answer and, having liberated Phryne’s camera, he relinquished her arm and began photographing the body through the window of the car.

“Odd to have the roof up in this weather,” Phryne observed, apparently determined to find something mysterious about the case.

“There was rain earlier this morning,” the Inspector observed, “around half-six.”

“Whatever were you doing awake at that ghastly hour?” Phryne asked, grabbing the camera back off him and snapping a cheeky shot of his adorably disgruntled face, before continuing to record the scene.

“I didn’t plan to be, but somebody kept stealing the covers.” 

The two detectives exchanged what Dr Mac considered to be an appallingly smug look; well, that answered that question - although apparently a week was insufficient time to resolve their sexual tension to the point where they ceased to be anything other than nauseating in public. She cleared her throat in an attempt to draw their attention back to the deceased.

“At least it’s keeping the sun off him, he’d smell even worse otherwise,” the doctor observed. She couldn’t make a proper determination of the time of death with the hood up either and was at the point of suggesting that they lower it so she could examine the body more closely when Phryne screamed and dropped the camera, which smashed, before beating a hasty and unapologetic retreat back to the Hispano.

Mac and Jack exchanged glances; there was only one thing that could provoke that kind of reaction in Phryne Fisher.

“Spider!” they said at once, both edging around to where Phryne had been standing to get a better look.

Sure enough, eight long, thick legs were slowly protruding from under the cuff of the man’s free hand. Apparently disturbed by the presence of so many large mammals, the huge arachnid scampered – at a speed that even made the doctor flinch – down the man’s leg to hide itself in the relatively cool, dark space under the seat.

“Well I think we may have found our killer,” she observed, “I was beginning to worry I was going to have to give you your pound back.” Technically this was not true, the bet hadn’t stipulated murder, they had all just assumed it.

“You think he was bitten?”

“It wouldn’t have killed him if it did, that’s a huntsman spider, not a pleasant bite, but only fatal if you’re already in a weakened state, but,” she glanced over briefly at Phryne, “imagine having one drop from the ceiling whilst you’re driving. They tend to cling on too, if they’re startled.”

Over in the Hispano, Phryne visibly shuddered and muttered dire imprecations against any and all species in possession of more legs than were good for them. Jack decided that his best course of action was to leave their suspect trapped in the vehicle. It was either that or risk the possibility that Phryne would attempt a little summary justice with an unregistered weapon if the thing escaped. He walked over to the car and slid back into the passenger seat to check she was alright. And maybe tease her a little. It wasn’t often he got the opportunity to protect her from anything, but spiders were the exception to the rule.

“It seems you were right, Miss Fisher. Our victim does indeed appear to have been surprised by a hidden assailant; probably snuck into the car last night to avoid the rain. Would you like me to clap him in irons for you? It might prove a bit of a challenge.”

“It was hiding in his car, the devious little fiend! I am never driving with the hood up again.” Phryne’s growled, barely seeming to care that Jack was smirking at her in a manner that would normally have provoked swift and decisive vengeance. She appeared to be taking the invasion of a motor vehicle by the scheming arachnid rather personally.

“Surely that would only give any spiders in the vicinity easier access?” 

His logic earned him a look that would have eviscerated a lesser man on the spot, but Jack knew her too well to think that sympathy was what she needed. Phryne fought back, ever and always, but especially when scared, and she would do so now. He could see her forcing the fear down, refusing to let it master her. It was awe inspiring. 

“Phryne, it’s my day off and Mac believes that man’s death was accidental. Let’s find a telephone and leave it to the local police. Please? I’m still planning on beating you to the end of that pier.” 

Phryne looked to be on the point of arguing; it took a lot to drag her away from a potential mystery, and to be fair, it wouldn’t be the first time they had encountered a spider as an unlikely murder weapon. To Jack’s relief, Mac came once again to his assistance.

“If it makes you feel any better I can probably get you a copy of the coroner’s report,” she promised, “but not until tomorrow, it’s my day off too and if at all possible I’d like to avoid spending it in a morgue.” It was not her only reason to want to hurry, but she was keeping that argument in reserve, she didn’t want to spoil the surprise.

Phryne Fisher did not usually acquiesce to anyone’s wishes, especially when there was a dead body in the equation, but the combined forces of Elizabeth MacMillan and Jack Robinson were a match even for her legendary stubbornness; especially when they were insisting on a course of action that she really wanted to follow herself. Phryne did not want to go anywhere near that car, or its vicious, scurrying little occupant, ever again.

“Oh, alright. If you insist,” she gave in reluctantly, much to her companions’ relief, “but we can’t just leave him like that.” She gestured towards the dead man in the car, still slumped over the wheel.

“We passed a pub about a mile or so back,” Jack recalled, “if one of us stays to secure the scene we can telephone the local police from there.”

In the end it took less than an hour for them to be on the road again and heading to the beach; even Phryne had been impressed by the way the local constables had handled themselves – possibly due to the scowling presence of a Senior Detective Inspector whose holiday was being interrupted. None of them wanted to be the man that made him feel he had a reason to stick around.

Phryne had argued forcefully for the swift application of the death penalty to the guilty party via the bottom of a standard issue policeman’s boot, only agreeing to its incarceration in a jam jar after Mac suggested the coroner might want to examine it before it was squashed into an unrecognisable pulp - there was still a chance it might be a venomous breed. 

As they drove swiftly away, Phryne once again behind the wheel, she couldn’t resist a little conjecture about the likelihood of an _actual_ murder – it was still a possibility after all – whilst Mac lit another cigarette, interjecting occasionally with the benefit of her medical expertise, and Jack – apparently unable to resist – responded with dry speculation on the potential for a vast arachnid conspiracy. By the time they were approaching their destination he had almost forgotten that her driving would likely be the death of them all.

***

With the delay it was mid-afternoon by the time they reached the beach. A few families and groups of friends clustered around the brightly coloured bathing sheds at the base of the dunes but the rest of the beach was all but deserted. Swinging her long legs out of the motorcar, which she had waited for Jack to open this time, Phryne retrieved the picnic basket from the boot and graciously allowed the Inspector to take it from her. Mac disembarked to join them, passing Phryne a turquoise bamboo and paper parasol from where it had been stashed on the back seat.

“Do you want to change?” she asked, gesturing towards the bathing sheds, hoping they could move further along and away from the noisy children camped closer to the entrance.

“You won’t be swimming I take it Mac?”

“Have you ever seen the effects of a blue ringed octopus bite?”

“I can’t say that I have.”

“Well it makes the Huntsman spider look like a house cat.”

“Suit yourself,” she grinned over at Jack who was staring out at waves, the salty breeze slightly ruffling his hair, “I have a race to win.”

Phryne grabbed a second bag from the back of the Hispano and sauntered off to change, leaving Jack and Mac to set up further along the beach and closer to the pier. Unbeknownst to her Inspector, she had a secret weapon, something she had purchased in Paris and had not yet had a chance to deploy in his presence.

Her bathing suit had been designed especially for her by Sonia Delaunay and it was a fabulous, gloriously modern, wearable work of art. The light, tightknit wool was woven into a dramatic art deco pattern of tessellating diamonds; bright blue and turquoise towards the neck, blending into deeper blue and indigo at the skirt, which was scandalously short. The halter tie allowed for the exposure of her back shoulders, something which she knew Jack found particularly distracting. She slipped into it, enjoying the feel of the soft fabric against her skin, and folded her day dress, underwear, shoes and stockings into her bag before retrieving her parasol and making her way back out to the beach.

Mac and Jack had found a nice spot in the sun, far enough away from the picnicking families to give them some peace and much closer to the pier. A blanket had been spread out and Mac had retrieved a second, larger parasol – this one a dark, ocean blue - and stuck it in the sand, providing some shade. She intended to sit in it and read her book, leaving the two detectives to flirt obnoxiously with each other at their leisure. She checked her watch again, she had a little while yet, thankfully Phryne’s unerring capacity to stumble across any dead bodies in the vicinity had not added too much of a delay to their schedule.

She knew the moment that Phryne had exited the bathing shed by the way the Inspector’s face went absolutely rigid for a second, before he apparently remembered he was now allowed to look and shot an appreciative smile in the direction of his approaching partner.

Phryne waved at them as she approached, calling out to Jack. “You better get changed, Inspector. Unless you’d rather fortify yourself with a few of Mr Butler’s sandwiches before our race, perhaps a glass of champagne?”

He stood up to greet her and Phryne came up to stand close to him, placing a hand on his chest, curling her fingers slightly into the solid mass of muscle she could feel through the light woollen vest he wore over his shirt. Jack sucked in his cheeks, trying and failing not to be charmed by her utterly transparent attempts to distract him.

“Trying to sabotage the competition, Miss Fisher?” his eyes twinkled and his hand came up to cover hers, holding it close. A smile flickered across her face like dappled sunlight as she remembered the newly discovered feel of that chest sans the intervening layers of clothing, and the little scratches left there by her nails.

“By any means necessary,” she murmured, leaning in closer.

Jack bent his head down so he could whisper in her ear; she did her best not to shiver as his warm breath ghosted over her neck.

“That sounds like a challenge.”

He sauntered off towards the sheds with his own small beach bag, his mind occupied by the memory of Phryne’s fingers, desperate against his bare flesh. Between the dead body and the ‘excitement’ of Miss Fisher’s driving, he had managed to keep his mind occupied, but now…a dip in the cool ocean was sounding like a more attractive prospect by the minute.

Mac had been lounged out under the parasol munching on a sandwich and watching the scene unfold with amusement.

“Glad to see you two are still intent on providing the rest of us with free dinner theatre, honestly the pair of you are utterly ridiculous.” She fished out a bottle of champagne to wash down her lunch and popped the cork. 

“I can’t imagine what you mean,” said Phryne, dragging her eyes away from the Inspector’s retreating back and digging out a pair of champagne flutes.

She gave her friend a happy grin and busied herself with refreshments, pouring the champagne and feeling the day was much improved now all the nefarious wildlife had been left behind.

“So, tell me Mac, why this sudden interest in a trip to the beach? Not that I’m complaining at all, but you’ve never exactly been fond of the ocean.” Mac looked a little awkward, and to Phryne’s intense surprise appeared to be blushing. 

Curiouser and curiouser. 

By the time Jack strode back across the sand in his own, rather more modest bathing costume, the two women were deep in conversation about which of the young constables roped into the Miss Fisher betting pool was most likely to welch on the bet. Phryne voicing the opinion there ought to be forfeits for anyone who didn’t pay up.

“Good thing you paid up right away, Inspector,” Mac observed, “god only knows what she’d try to get you to do.”

 _“Mac!”_ Phryne intoned in mock effrontery, “You know Jack _always_ pays his debts.” 

She was peering at him from her position on the sand, the round frames of her sunglasses pushed low on her nose so there was no way he could miss the appreciative glance she sent up his body. He really did wear a bathing costume delightfully well. He swallowed.

“A lucky escape I’m sure,” Jack deadpanned at the doctor, before reaching down to offer Phryne his hand, “and on that subject, I believe I owe you a race Miss Fisher.”

He pulled her up but did not let go of her hand; Phryne downed the last of her champagne and tugged him after her towards the welcoming sea.

“Not so much as a backward glance,” Mac muttered to herself as she watched them plunge into the waves.

From her position it looked less like a race, more like an opportunity for Phryne to test the Inspector’s limitations when it came to public impropriety once afforded the relative privacy of the enveloping waves. That woman never did play fair, the poor bloke had never really stood a chance. Still, Mac smiled a little as she watched her friend get unceremoniously dunked underwater for her cheek, he seemed to give as good as he got.

Idly she flicked through the pages of the novel she had been reading, sipping at her champagne and enjoying a rare afternoon’s peace when a voice made her look up.

“Hello, Doctor. Mind if I join you?”

The woman in front of her was slim, with hazel eyes and ash blonde hair rolled into a neat chignon at the base of her neck. Unlike Mac she had no aversion to bathing costumes, although her navy and white ensemble was considerably less daring than Phryne’s.

“Jennifer, I was worried we might miss you. Champagne?”

The woman nodded her head enthusiastically and accepted the proffered glass.

“No chance of that. I’ve been waiting an age to meet your infamous Miss Fisher!”

In fact Jennifer had been fascinated by Phryne’s adventures since Mac had first mentioned them, it was almost enough to make a woman jealous. 

“Your friends aren’t joining us?” Jennifer glanced around as if to check that Mac really was alone. 

She didn’t sound too disappointed at the prospect of an afternoon on the beach together, despite having talked Mac into arranging this clandestine little rendezvous with the express plan of meeting Miss Fisher - preferably a long way from Prudence Stanley who had something of a formidable reputation with hospital staff. Unlike Mac, Jennifer was rather fond of the ocean, and when it came to her, Mac seemed to find herself very easily led - especially when it came to Jennifer in a bathing costume.

“My friends are busy making their own entertainment,” Mac nodded towards the two detectives who had finally reached the finish-line, although gods only knew who had got there first. “It was supposed to be a race apparently.”

Jennifer looked out dispassionately towards the couple currently locked in tight embrace under the shadows of the pier, pressed close against a wooden pillar to keep themselves afloat.

“Well at least they both appear to be winning.”

She took up a seat next to Mac, careful not to spill any of her champagne which was far more extravagant than anything she could afford on a nurse’s salary. Their fingers brushed together as she took the delicate flute, and she smiled at the doctor with soft, admiring eyes as the pair relaxed in the sun to enjoy their picnic. Phryne and Jack would join them soon enough, no doubt.

“So, Mac. Have you been enjoying your day out? Solve any unexpected murders?”

“Not exactly, but I did win my bet.”

“Drinking and gambling! Is there no end to your vices?”

“Not if I can help it.”

Mac refilled her glass, lost in an unaccustomed haze of happy contentment, and gazed out at the blue horizon, reflecting that – spiders aside – today was shaping up to be something of a win all round.


End file.
